Top Five Test Issues of the Mobile Internet Revolution

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a mobile internet revolution going on. The signs are all there: a rapid increase in the number of mobile subscribers, the number of devices those subscribers use, and the type and quantity of content and services those subscribers want.

Consider one household on my block: two people, fifteen IP-addressable devices. Seriously. They have three laptops, one desktop, three smartphones, two iPads, one PlayStation 3, one DVR, one network printer and one file server. And they’re about to add an internet-enabled TV for the guest bedroom.

The mobile internet revolution builds on the evolution of several technologies, and beyond upgrades to the wireless access network, core and backhaul, it is also driving a wholesale upgrade – to IPv6 and 100GE. Subscribers’ expectations are set by the fixed broadband experience. To meet their expectations for mobile broadband services, providers must deliver on performance, availability, scalability and security (PASS).

Mobile internet test methodologies focus on five key areas:

Raw performance (L2/L3)Before a device or network can deliver services, it must reliably deliver bits, frames, and packets at line rate. Use PRBS fill patterns and standards-based forwarding and throughput tests before moving on to other features which depend on this essential capability.

QoSReal-time communications and entertainment are major drivers for the mobile internet revolution, and Quality of Service (QoS) is the key enabler for these high-bandwidth, latency-sensitive services. Use standards-based test methodologies to validate the QoS functionality of the solution.

Application performance (L4/L7)To evaluate true application performance, the solution must be tested in a realistic environment that reflects the conditions under which it will be deployed. Use a test platform that goes beyond emulation to simulate real user behavior, real stateful, converged traffic, and real network conditions.

QoE
Quality of Experience (QoE) is the new metric for assessing and delivering end-to-end services and content. Delivering QoE goes beyond assessing the queuing and prioritization capabilities of a device or system to measuring the quality of the actual content delivered to the subscriber. Use a test platform capable of simulating the constantly-changing nature of the mobile internet environment and assessing end-user quality scores.

IPv4/IPv6 performanceIPv4 and IPv6 will coexist for many years. Use standards-based test methodologies to evaluate dual-stack performance, 6to4 tunneling performance, prefix-length performance, and other key aspects of performance.

To find out how your testing can support test realism, scalability (whether in ports, subscribers, sessions, VPNs, routes, tunnels, or VLANs), automation and intelligent results, download the white paper from Spirent, .100G Ethernet: The Speed of Now